To give you an actual answer, interpreting the 2nd Amendment as granting an essentially unrestricted right to firearm ownership to all Americans is a very recent concept, only being solidly established in 2008 in the SCOTUS case of DC v. Heller, which struck down a firearms regulation law dating from 1975. Justice Stevens called it “unquestionably the most clearly incorrect decision that the Supreme Court announced during my tenure on the bench”, and suggested that a constitutional amendment should be enacted to explicitly overturn it.
That, and Republicans have clearly established that precedent means essentially nothing now, so appointing a SCOTUS majority that favors some amount of gun regulation is also a completely valid path forward, and probably more reasonable than an amendment.
So, the realistic option is to keep Republicans out of the presidency for a good decade or so. It’s not fast, but Republicans persisted for nearly 50 years to overturn Roe v. Wade. It’s doable.
Yeah I would agree that basically packing the court or waiting out more retirements from right wing judges is about the only realistic path forward, and like you’re saying that could take decades.
People in these kinds of discussions being like “WHY CAN’T WE CHANGE THIS OVERNIGHT?” really ought to better inform themselves of how this stuff works. It’s not that simple.
To give you an actual answer, interpreting the 2nd Amendment as granting an essentially unrestricted right to firearm ownership to all Americans is a very recent concept, only being solidly established in 2008 in the SCOTUS case of DC v. Heller, which struck down a firearms regulation law dating from 1975. Justice Stevens called it “unquestionably the most clearly incorrect decision that the Supreme Court announced during my tenure on the bench”, and suggested that a constitutional amendment should be enacted to explicitly overturn it.
That, and Republicans have clearly established that precedent means essentially nothing now, so appointing a SCOTUS majority that favors some amount of gun regulation is also a completely valid path forward, and probably more reasonable than an amendment.
So, the realistic option is to keep Republicans out of the presidency for a good decade or so. It’s not fast, but Republicans persisted for nearly 50 years to overturn Roe v. Wade. It’s doable.
Yeah I would agree that basically packing the court or waiting out more retirements from right wing judges is about the only realistic path forward, and like you’re saying that could take decades.
People in these kinds of discussions being like “WHY CAN’T WE CHANGE THIS OVERNIGHT?” really ought to better inform themselves of how this stuff works. It’s not that simple.